Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Streep to team with Weinstein for 'NRA takedown picture'?

Howard Stern interviewed filmmaker Harvey Weinstein today on his radio show. Weinstein's focus was ostensibly to promote August: Osage County, and it was extremely interesting to listen to him discuss how he chooses to back certain scripts, why getting Oscar nominations is an important marketing strategy for films, and how AMPAS evidently hates The Golden Globes. One side comment: Harvey, I'm sure your daughters know "the business" like you suggest, but if they held up four fingers after seeing a screening of August to indicate that Meryl would be the first to win four Oscars, they may be too young to remember a former actress by the name of Kate Hepburn. But whatev.

By far the most compelling part of the interview for me (obviously) was when Weinstein revealed, perhaps prematurely, that he plans to produce a film involving Meryl which is sort of a takedown of the National Rifle Association. When Stern asked him if it was going to be a documentary Weinstein replied "nope, it's going to be a big movie." He said the project will be in the vein of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and that the NRA will "wish they weren't alive" when he's done with them. Jeeze. I love when Meryl chooses projects that have a "message" or at least opens people's eyes to issues she finds important. Silkwood, The Manchurian Candidate, Rendition and Lions for Lambs come to mind.

I have no idea if there's a script or if this is a done deal, but the way Weinstein spoke of it, it sounded like a sure thing. I doubt it's ready for this year. Hopefully Meryl films The Good House this summer/fall, and I can't help hanging on to the hope that a script works out for her to portary Susan B. Anthony in a movie that would be released in 2016 (an election year). Maybe a script for the NRA project will come together by next year with a shooting schedule sometime in 2016 for a release in 2017. But my gut tells me that this may happen sooner than later. Regardless, it's always exciting to learn of potential new projects involving our girl.

I'll end this post with a video of the Stern/Weinstein interview and more importantly a call to secular prayer for Meryl's chances tomorrow morning. Tune in at 7:30 am Central Time for the 86th Academy Award nominations.